Ecolibrium (PS Vita) Review

Ecolibrium is the latest free app to be released for Sony’s PS Vita console. It is a free-to-play video game that sees you trying to manage a healthy ecosystem on your own planet. Any decision you make will have consequences and it’s your job to make sure nothing goes wrong or else your ecosystem will be unable to survive.

Although Ecolibrium is free-to-play for the PS Vita, is it still worth downloading to play it? Is this game even worth playing? Find out in our review of Ecolibrium for the PS Vita.

First of all, Ecolibrium is unlike most other games that are released today and it’s a very unique concept. This is one of the main reasons I’m writing this review in one block in lieu of our traditional format of writing down the HOTs and NOTs of the game.

Managing your own ecosystem is not easy but the game’s extensive tutorial mode tries its best to explain things to you as simple as possible. One of the most important things to factor in as that you meed to have a healthy balance of plants and animals in the environment or else everything will die out.

All environments in the game start off as a barren wasteland so it’s up to you to create an ecosystem full of plants and life. Only a handful of plants and animals are available so it’s up to you to populate this world.

It all sounds like an easy task to do, but I feel most gamers will be lost once they have completed the tutorial and left to do the challenges all on their own. Achieving a healthy ecosystem is time consuming and players will need to keep checking out the status of the ecosystem constantly or else all of your animals will die out.

At the beginning of the game, it can be quite difficult completing the challenges because most of the plants and animals aren’t available yet. To get new animals or plants, you have to do one of the following three things: complete challenges in the game successfully, purchase the DLC or have a 3G PS Vita console to “find” new animals in the game.

This in my opinion is the game’s main downfall because not every gamer would be willing to play for DLC for what is essentially a “free-to-play” video game. Although the DLC is quite cheap, only true fans of the game will be willing enough to play for it. Most players will need to earn new animals and plants by completing the challenges but this will be a difficult task for anyone not familiar with this style of game…

The first challenge you have to do is achieve perfect ecolibrium of 98% or more in a 24 hour period. You can only populate a handful of animals and plants in the world because you will run out of your “energy meter”. It’s in your best interest to check constantly how your ecosystem is going over that 24 hour period because if you don’t, your ecosystem will not thrive and you will fail the objective. I made the mistake of not checking because I went to sleep and woke up with a failed ecosystem…

Another thing to take note is that Ecolibrium has fake animals and plants. The design of the animals look a lot like the animals seen in James Cameron’s Avatar film in my opinion although the world you populate has looks nothing like Pandora that’s for sure. Personally, I feel it would have been more educational if the game made use of real-life plants and animals and an actual environment. This way, it can teach players how a real ecosystem is like.

Ecolibrium is a very slow-paced game and is certainly not a fun endeavor for everyone. You have to be fully committed and engaged with the concept of managing an ecosystem to fully appreciate what this game offers. Other than taking photos and ogling at your own ecosystem, there’s not much else to see or do in this game. You don’t even get to see other animals hunting each other either…

Ecolibrium is free to download now for the PS Vita, although the game/app itself may not be fun for everyone. Sure the graphics are nice and it teaches you a thing or two about nature, but it’s not a very action-packed or very exciting either. If you are into this type of game, you will have lots of fun. For everyone else, Ecolibrium is too slow-paced for it to be called a “fun experience”.

[Editor’s Note:  Ecolibrium was reviewed on the PS Vita platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]